There are a bunch of tab widgets at WordPress: [wordpress.org...] You will probably have to modify any of the plugins you choose at least for styling if not to have the tabs display exactly what you want them to.

pls do you know the name of any plugin dat can help display a number of posts from diferent categories with there thumbnail on my index page. what i mean is i can av sports, entertanment e.t.c so d plugin would pick like seven post from dis categories and display it in my index

I used to use Popularity Contest or Democracy plugins. I'm not sure if either can segregate by category and I'm not certain they're still being updated.

I've taken to doing "most popular" lists manually using my analytics data. Why in the world would a manualate (new word of the day) a process that can be automated? Because I can subtly work in content that I think should be more popular that isn't.

"Most popular" plugins tend to be self-reinforcing - once listed an item becomes ipso facto even more popular and is hard to knock off its pedestal.